Update

Wow how time flies!   I quit posting on this blog...six years ago?    I just wanted to give an update & encourage every one to keep homeschooling even when you think you can't do it because you can!

My son graduated high school last year & we homeschooled all the way through 12th grade.  I honestly wasn't sure if it was something I could do or if I would "ruin" him....LOL    We did traditional homeschool & did not use accredited online schools or the ever popular online public school at home (which is not homeschooling).  

I wanted to make sure that we could cover the subjects we wanted to & use the curriculums we wanted...or made our own from different resources.  The bottom line,  as long as they are learning new things in the subjects you are teaching you are doing it the right way!

In Georgia we did the 4 core courses each year of high school....math, language arts, social studies of some sort (history, geography, etc.) & science.   Health (we chose to do a CPR certification & Emergency first aid course for that).   Physical education is easy to accomplish:  sports, running, working out at the gym all count toward that.   My son's goal was military so he went way beyond what he needed to do with that...just sayin....:)   We also did 2 years of a foreign language.  He wanted to do German so we used a free online course called Duo Lingo for that.  Then all of his extracurricular activities I counted as electives:  Civil Air Patrol & the sheriff's office Explorers program.

As I mentioned, my son's goal was military so we stopped by the Army recruiters office one day just to get some information.   They decided to give him a test on the spot to see if he was ready to take the ASVAB or if he would need to study some more.  My heart sunk....I was like...ugh....we haven't studied for the ASVAB yet.  Actually, I had planned on making a curriculum for his senior year on subjects geared toward the ASVAB.   I had just bought the book ASVAB for dummies & had not even had a chance to look through it.   As a homeschool mom you start feeling the pressure because you know if they fail all those people are going to be looking at you....LOL

So back he went into an office to take the practice test.   When he got done they were all excited because he had scored so high.  So off he went to Atlanta the next week to take the ASVAB officially.  End result:  he scored in the top 1% (or so the recruiter said) & could choose whatever path he wanted to take in the military.

Now, did I have him take honor courses in high school & push him to excel?   NO!!!   Actually he was terrible at math.  For high school we did general math, pre-algebra, algebra 1 (which he sucked at & had no clue what he was doing) so for 12th grade we went back to PRE-ALGEBRA.    I felt it was more important that he do that over & grasp that instead of just pushing him ahead into something he totally did not understand.

Language arts was pretty much a nightmare too.   As a lot of you moms may realize with your teenage boys...they hate not just creative writing but just writing.  Telling them to just write down the thoughts that pop in their head & we can correct it later....well, that didn't work for us.  He had no clue how to get the thoughts out of his head on paper.  I knew I couldn't grab his hand & move the pen for him so I gave up on that.  Instead I just taught him the mechanics of writing.

For example:  I knew he was not going to write an outline & a report.   So I had him do copy work....he wrote out the outlines & reports that we had examples of or different ones that he found online.  They were not his own & there was no creative work of art going on....but he learned what an outline looks like & the proper way a report should be written.   He excelled at vocabulary & spelling...so that was one less thing to worry about.  Other than that I had him read a lot....just for enjoyment or some books that went along with our literature course.  No book reports...just read, read, read.  

History & geography courses were easy because those were his favorite subjects.  Science he loved too as long as the subjects did not involve a lot of math, so we stayed away from chemistry, etc.   I figured if it wasn't something he truly loved he was not going to make a career out of it so why force it.  Plus I knew his career path so we geared his subjects toward that when we could.

I gave him a standardized test every year to see where he was at & honestly he was average in some & above average in others....but never below the norm.   So I knew what we were doing was working.  When it really counted & he was taking the ASVAB for his dream career he stepped up & met the challenge.

So the point is...even if your kid is not a genius in every subject, & totally fails in some...don't give up.    They are still learning.